hate

Post-Jordanism: noun- The artistic (cultural?) movement which began in late 2011. Works within this deal with themes of existential crisis, identity crisis, posttraumatic stress disorder, the state of being broken, intrusive thoughts of (non)existent(?) memory, the morbid preoccupation with suicide, grief, uncontrollable emotion, and darkness as a simple abstract concept. ex. 1: "Kill me."

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Problems

My Macbook is pretty much dead. Trying to fix it, but a lot of my writing is on hold for the time being.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

What is "Topography Genera Center East?"

Off the side of the blog, you may notice a gadget referring to itself as my "online resume." On it are a series of links to various works of mine. It's not complete, despite what it may tell you. I don't remember all my works, and there are bound to be a few I don't even want to share. But in the meantime, I had may as well describe what each link actually links to.

Topography Genera Center East


Not even two weeks after returning to England in December of 2011, I was left with only Rapture to keep me busy in terms of writing. I really wanted to write more, though. Hell, I had a lot of things about EAT I never got the chance to fully write about. So I brainstormed ideas for a new story, and I came up with something inspired by the likes of Still Remains Within, The Archive, Channel Fear, and a slew of other random inspirations.

I made the sequel to Jordan Eats Normally Now. Of course, just as Jordan Eats before it had pushed the experimental boundaries of Fearblogs and inspired many (or so I'm told!), I wanted to make sure Topography Genera featured just as many surprises.

Topography Genera is the first Fearblog I have ever written as a collaborative act. I am cowriting the blog with alliterator (of Ontological and Channel Fear fame) and newcoming Fearblogger Cadet (official artist for OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING, creative art head for Jordan Eats).

DJay32, myself, will be writing as Jeremy Luther, desk jockey for the Topography Genera Center. ..oh ha "desk jockey," DJ. In the facility, he has been designated the codename "Liquid Len." I am essentially the creative head, but I'm trying my best to distribute control of the story among all three of us.

Cadet will be writing as Ellen Varangi, fellow desk jockey, codenamed "Duchess." She will also be providing most if not all of the art.

alliterator will be writing as Stanford Milgram, head of the medical provisions for the desk jockeys. He is codenamed "Doctor Cloud." alliterator's already helped me so much with ideas, and will be providing.. some stuff.

Divided, we stand. United, we fall. ..in a good way.

Plot-wise, the blog talks about the Topography Genera Center, East division. It's a Fear-research facility. I have rough ideas for where the plot will go, but I can't share them here yet.

You can find the blog here.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Another new project!

Built For Two


I really can't talk about this one much. In the experimental time we're in, you can consider this me experimenting with "keeping vague." In particular, this is me keeping vague about the development. Even when this blog is done, I'm gonna try my hardest not to publicly talk much about its development.

You can find Built For Two here, and I'm sure it'll be a beautiful story when it's done.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

For Rapture: Operation Ground and Pound part 2

Tumblr only allows me to upload five minutes of video per day, so here's the remaining three minutes of "Operation Ground and Pound," the epic scene from OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING's July 31st log! Music by Dragonforce, in case the credits didn't tell you already.

Note: Due to various reasons, this video really sucked. Part 1 wasn't too bad, but Part 2 is just suck suck suck. I'm sorry.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Three new projects

The next era of my writing has begun.

HELP


This is an experimental Fearblog much in the vein of Jordan Eats Normally Now. In this, Andrew Rogers' friend was found dead with a strange video playing on loop in the background. Probably gonna be an Archie/Eyeblog.

Where My Eyes Remain


This is a vanilla slenderblog! Not even technically a Fearblog. This is about policewoman Veronica on her life's journey to find the bastard who slaughtered her friends and almost got her as a child.

Third project


This was actually the first new blog I made. I'm not ready to release it just yet, though I promise there are some novel things in it.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Brainstorming with pictures

The other day, my dad and I drove around his hometown of Bradford, up in Yorkshire. I decided to do some brainstorming for potential Fearblogs (or potential miscellaneous stories), so dad let me take some pictures with his camera.
The first picture. Bradford's a simple town, exactly what most people probably think of when they hear "English town." xD

 


Some of the streets we drove down were uncannily vacant.

The buildings in the streets dad drove me down were gloomy, dark, and uniform.

They have an almost oppressive feel to them. Dad tells me these are the streets he grew up on.

There was even a gloomy factory-esque thing here.






 
Not all of the pictures I took were particularly that good. >_>



Here is a dark church.

Here is a creepy statue on said church.





That's about it.

The Future of My Writing

While I have no idea what the next era of my writing, I intend on figuring out what I'll be writing next so that when the time comes that we look back on this, we can have a long log of works to keep the era diverse. :3

I definitely intend on writing not just a spiritual successor but a sequel to Jordan Eats Normally Now. It wouldn't feature Jordan beyond a mentioning at best, but I want to have it develop the creators of Weathered Crashes, and the Topographic Ocean. It'd talk more about EAT, and there's no doubt it'd mention other Fears as well. Expect this.


I was thinking of making a vanilla slenderblog of my own, to.. y'know, pay homage to the amazing mythos that's inspired hundreds of aspiring writers such as myself. .w.

I'm currently in talks about making a collaborative Fearblog with my father. We've been throwing ideas around, location scouting, taking interesting pictures. My dad has some creepy ideas already.

There's bound to be other short story blogs of mine focusing on certain Fears, too.

I've been considering bringing out the 'fourth generation' of Dark Chao Adventures, but take that with a grain of salt; it's not a high priority.

In the Rapture world, this next era of writing will bring with it Act III (and hopefully Act IV), and it was my plan to make a sort of Rapture podcast with the third act as well.

I wanna do some surprising things. I don't know what I'll do, but I'll probably tackle that Jordan Eats sequel soon, actually. I hope you guys can stick around for it, and if you do, I really hope you enjoy what I give you. :D

Sunday, December 18, 2011

DJay32, a retrospective (8): The Discovery of Fear

The Discovery of Fear


"A New Mythos"


In February of 2011, I received a message from troper CuteWithoutThe asking if I wanted to make an eldritch abomination for a mythos he was making. As long as it had something to do with water, it was fine. So I spent a good few weeks thinking of all these details, brainstorming monsters, and I settled on the hive minded creature known as EAT. That wasn't all, though; I was advised to blog about it, much in the style of the recent surge of slender man-related blogs online.

Jordan Eats Normally Now


Entry here. Jordan Eats took me a good ten, eleven months to make. It was about the fictional Jordan as he investigated why certain blogs have been disappearing, why a girl was now in a house thousands of miles away from her home, and what happened to his brother. It became a five-movement story with a lot of things I'm not too proud of, but it was apparently one of the most popular Fearblogs.

The Establishment of the Fear Mythos


In early March of 2011, troper alliterator suggested the eldritch abominations in our mythos be metaphorically "the embodiments of fear." We progressed from this to calling the monsters "Fears," and then to calling the whole mythos "The Fear Mythos." The other Fearbloggers-- who I affectionately like to refer to as "my colleagues" -- made dozens of amazing blogs about creative Fears. Myself, I wrote away with Jordan Eats. In May of 2011, I decided to make a short story blog to add to the pile.

Moonlit Whispers


This story was about a man nicknamed "Garth" who had been hearing odd noises in his apartment, so he started recording them to see if he could decipher them and fix them. Turned out to be The Rake. This blog was received with warm reception.

From Facebook to Tumblr: A New Kind of Fearblog


I was making Facebook notes one day when I realized it was May 21st, 2011. "The world was supposed to end in Rapture today, wasn't it?" So I received a stroke of brilliance.

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING


Entry here. I started a new Facebook note in the style of a survival log of me trying to survive in this craaaazy apocalypse. The Rake was thrown in for the fact that it's very horror movie-esque and for no other reason. I came up with very colourful characters-- like Cockroach Jesus. This note received insane critical acclaim from everyone who read it. One thing lead to another, so I decided to make a second note continuing the story. Bam, more acclaim.

I wrote a few more notes, crafting a more complex plot than just "THE WORLD IS ENDING OH GOD." I also decided to turn it into a Fear-focused story. I needed a way to show it to more people, so I experimented with Tumblr and wound up making a nice blog for the story. I completely moved the story's focus to Tumblr, and now the story is a planned four-act epic with every Fear (up to The Eye) playing a large role.

Rapture wound up taking inspiration from everything I had previously written. It was the spiritual successor to DCA in that it shared the comedy and insane plots of the seventh season (among other things-- like it's fucking huge). It featured Fentzy and Jane in both starring their art and involving them in the story. It was often structured and paced like a video game, much like the Sean games. It had musical references so far up the ass that you could say prog is as much of a rapist as The Harlequin. And Jane. ...and.. let me move on!

This story is ongoing.

Slow Writing


I got sick of being limited to only Rapture and Jordan Eats.

Memories of a Time Beyond


Entry here. This was a story about a girl named Polly whose past was haunted by figures she only knew as "The Choir." Her life was heavily distorted, and her memories were obfuscated. In the blog, she tried to make sense of her obfuscated past. Story received generally warm reception.

Then I moved back to America on August 5th, 2011. Hung out with Eric a lot, not to mention many other friends. It didn't work out, so I returned back to England on December 3rd, where I finished Jordan Eats and have been Rapturing on and off.

With the end of Jordan Eats Normally Now came the end of an era, and it turns out it was the end of this era. Rapture's an era arc, much like Dark Chao Adventures before it; it exists in multiple eras, rather on its own timeline.

In retrospect, The Discovery of Fear gave me an amazing outlet to vent all my stresses as well as to experiment greatly with the creative new medium of blogging. This era introduced the joys of OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING, and it made me truly respect my writing talents.

What's to come: Who knows? In fact, I want to make an entry talking about brainstorms for what could possibly come next.

DJay32, a retrospective (7): Personal Experience

Personal Experience


The day I was to leave America in 2010, I happened to make a slew of new online friends. Most of them weren't vital in my writing's development or anything, but two in particular have changed so many things that I'd be a fool not to mention them here. One of them was a girl my age named Catie, who I affectionately refer to as "Fentzy." She became the official artist for Dark Chao Adventures. The other was a girl close to my age named Jane. She became.. a lot of things.

I became a part of a little circle of friends who I spoke to every day on AIM. I had no school to go to or job or anything, so this became a key part to my life. In January of 2011, in response to Fentzy drawing a dog version of me (that Jane dubbed "Clarence"), I decided to write short stories starring my new slew of friends.

Me and My Family of Friends


This was to be a collection of short stories all linked by a loose story arc regarding a crazy dragon named "Steve." I wound up only making four stories out of, like... ten. >_>
"The Stalker" starred Fentzy as she explored a strange building and met a crazy killer. After writing this story, I decided to make this a collection of creepypasta.
"Sunshine Valley" was Jane's, about her riding a unicorn into a town of elves who all grin too widely. This was me experimenting with the uncanny valley.
"Forest of Faces" was for a friend who I only know as "Zonic." He wandered into a forest by accident and constantly heard a wheezy laughter, only to run into an eldritch beast who does not wear a mask. Makes sense in context.
"A Ward for Autumn" starred the eponymous Autumn as she was trapped in a hospital and chased by a bloody (but vague) humanoid skeleton man.

The Mouse in the Doorway


In one group chat with Autumn and Jane, the former asked me to tell her a story. So I started making one up on the spot. In the end, it was about a mouse named Thomas who struck a deal with the devil in order to see his wife again. It was also a little bit about a gerbil named Happy who was being watched by Thomas every night. For a story written completely on the spot, it was good! But as just a story, it had plenty of flaws.

Throughout the months of January-through-April of 2011, I wrote many short stories solely for Jane, as well. Most of them were just me being a dork, but I experimented quite a bit with some of them! I can't, for the life of me, remember most of them right now, though. xD

I stopped writing standalone stories for a very long time at this point. Instead, I received an offer I couldn't refuse.

In retrospect, the Personal Experience era gave me a lot of experience with.. personal stories. Hence the name. This segment of time was influential, though it wasn't reflected in my writing that much. It was mostly influential in the support and happiness I got from my online friends. Without it, my writing would no doubt be very much different.

Coming up, the most recent era of my writing!

DJay32, a retrospective (6): The Facebook Era

The Facebook Era


The Great Facebook Migration


On the last day of middle school in May 2009, I got home from school and wondered how I could keep in contact with my friends, as I was getting quite popular. My parents suggested Facebook, so I actually decided to make one for the hell of it. I got addicted to it for various reasons, but one of the things I really took a liking to was the Note feature.

Jordan Dooling: LIVE at the Facebook Theater


I started doing notes consisting entirely of improvisational comedy acts, fictional transcripts of myself on a stage titled the "Facebook Theater," telling stand-up comedy to the crowd of my friends. I made a good fifteen of these, and they were all received rather well. I even did a couple of raps in some of them. >_>;

Assorted Faces


I also wrote more than a few unassociated short stories on Facebook during my ninth grade year.
"Enter Sandman," loosely based on the Metallica song of the same name, was my random attempt at horror. A boy's gonna go to bed, but a few things startle him in his sleep.
"To be Left for Dead" was a two-parter with two short paragraphs about Left 4 Dead: "No Mercy for You" and "Take a Death Toll." It really wasn't much.
"Murdersome Supremacists" was actually my attempt to make up lyrics for a fictitious tech-death song. I had fun with it.
"Scooby-Doo, Where You At?" was my attempt to show what a more 'modern' version of Scooby-Doo would be like. Wrote entirely in math class one day.

The Golden Age of Script Experimentation

Fred and Ted's Totally Infected Adventure (Left 2 Die in the Deep South)


This was a project I gave myself: Write a multi-act screenplay my friends would appreciate. It was entirely Left 4 Dead fanfiction, done in the style of a fictional British comedy movie starring Simon Pegg and James May as zombies who are being chased out of their home. I only finished the first act and half of the second one. It was actually pretty good.

Dark Chao Adventures (Third generation, 2009-2011)

At some point, I started the seventh season of DCA, not really expecting to have any serious readers. Actually, it got to the point where not even my DCA-obsessed best friend was caught up anymore. So these episodes were entirely for the sake of entertaining myself-- my only sure reader. I extended this season, making it around four times as long as a normal one-- and that's only in terms of episode number! The average script length was enormous; these were all the longest stories I had ever written at the time. The overall plot got complicated, not to mention quite meta. The seventh season stretched on 'til episode seventy-nine, which I finished in January of 2011. I ended the seventh season with a cliffhanger, and started work on the eighth season. But stopped.

Life's Stresses


On August 7th, 2011, my family moved back to our home country of England due to crazy reasons. Life, itself, got crazier. I could talk for ages about this, but let's stick to my writing. My actual writing from here on out tended to talk more about stressful things, about the concepts of abuse and consequence, and my writing got all-around more serious and down-to-earth.

The Adventures of the Slenderbrothers


I started daydreaming about the fun I had hanging out with Eric Taylor back in ninth grade. We were so close that we were essentially brothers, and we both loved the slender man. We both wore clothes that were unintentionally similar to The Blues Brothers. One day, after watching the aforementioned film, I decided to start a little mythos about Rael Fancyhat and Knochen Bones. I basically told the stories of us hanging out, but with almost Biblical narration and a few fantasy elements.

The Original Adventures were our real hang-out tales with fantasy elements.

The New Adventures were pure fiction.

The Continued Adventures were my life's dream-- to hang out with Eric again and have new material to write about.

Continued Assortments of Faces


I wrote a few more short stories on Facebook.

"Rael's School for n00bs: Prog 101" was a comedy script about me trying to teach people what prog was. Included musical references up the ass.
"The Facebook Theater Show" was a planned three-part murder mystery starring all my friends, but only one part was finished: "Murder, Plain and Simple." It was actually pretty damn well-done.

In retrospect, The Facebook Era was just as important as The Golden Age of Comic in terms of developing my already-established talents, but also as important as Dawn of the PaperMachine in terms of experimentation. Without this and the stresses within it, my writing would be far less down-to-earth, far less serious.

We have only two eras left to my writing, and the next one actually started a few months before The Facebook Era even ended. The last one actually starts around the time "Murder, Plain and Simple" was released. These eras get really blurry in terms of division! But we're nearly done.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

DJay32, a retrospective (5): Dawn of the PaperMachine

Dawn of the PaperMachine


The S1 Engine

Towards the end of sixth grade, no new Sean comic had been made for a while. In a way, I knew the Golden Age was ending. But I still wanted to experiment; I was still in the Great Experimentation Period. So I invented a game console of my own, one called the PaperMachine. Also called a notebook.

Sean: The Game


One day, I took a 70-odd-page notebook and got to writing, because I had an idea. I wanted to make a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story in the vein of Fighting Fantasy. And I actually made a pretty damn decent one. The plot: You are a stickman named You. You encounters an old man who turns out to be Sean! "An evil wizard on Video Game Topia transformed me into this old man." So You sets out to save the day! The story wound up being.. stuff I forgot. And my friends enjoyed it.

Sean 2: Sean and Cake


SO I MADE A SEQUEL. This one had an even more absurd plot: You is on a rooftop. Sean is there. Sean wants cake. You runs off, kills Doctor Eggman, and then gets Sean a cake. This wound up being much more polished, much more organized, and much more loved.

I made plans for a Sean 3, but my best friend Johnny Thompson offered to do that one, so I let him and was quiet. Instead, I wanted to do Sean 4. I didn't know what to do with it until one day, after some final test of the year when I had hours of free time. I took a piece of paper and drew a combination between a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story and a comic strip. It wound up looking more like a paper platformer with heavy puzzle focus, and I actually made a pretty great level. I dubbed it.. something I forgot. I experimented with this "engine" for a while, and then I decided to make Sean 4 into this kind of game.

BUT BEFORE I GIVE THE ENTRY ON IT, seventh grade began, and Johnny bailed out on me; Sean 3 was not going to be a Johnny Thompson production. So I took the opportunity to make something out of it.

Sean 3: The Game


This time, I took a giant, 200-page notebook, and crafted a several-chapter Choose-Your-Own-Adventure starring all of my friends. And You! Sean has been kidnapped by aliens, so You has to go on another video game-referencing adventure to save his life. Notable events included a Bioshock parody, fun little cutscenes, and.. I don't even remember anymore. xD I remember the ending, though! In the end, it turned out Doctor Eggman was the one who kidnapped Sean, and he was using him for something mysterious. You and Sean discovered strange spring-like creatures in Eggman's base, and the game concluded with You and Sean, back-to-back in Eggman's base, surrounded by springs.

The Spring Engine

Sean 4: Springs of War


I took an even bigger notebook this time and continued the Sean game adventures. Story-wise, this game was a direct continuation of Sean 3, with You and Sean being separated and You traveling across a crazy series of places to find him. It turns out those spring things in Eggman's base are trying to avenge him ('CAUSE EGGMAN DIED), so they brainwashed Sean and all of You's other friends and all these boss battles and stuff. Game-wise, this was somehow a platformer. I drew out entire levels, some of them actually pretty awesome, and my friends tried their willful suspension of disbelief and played it all for a go. The game had six "acts," each filled with several levels. It actually got really exciting. AND I DID ACHIEVEMENTS AND MULTIPLAYER AND UNLOCKABLES AND CUTSCENES. All my friends loved it.

Seventh grade ended, eighth grade started, not really all that much happened for a while. I wound up getting some stressful stuff in life and not focusing much on writing.

The Two S5 Engines: Proto and DM

I experimented with the concept of a Sean 5, trying to make a paper first-person shooter engine but ultimately failing at anything beyond on-rails. I tried again with a new notebook and actually stumbled upon an interesting engine.

Sean 5: Infiltration Destination


This new engine was simple: Dungeons and Dragons-style! Each level was a map, and only the 'DM' could see the map; the person playing the game would have the environment described by said DM. I was able to craft a game similar to the first three Sean games but using far less paper, thus having room for a truly epic-sized game! In this, Sean was kidnapped again or something and so You had to sneak into some facility. This was to be a two-disc game, each disc being an entire notepad. But, I lost the first notepad just as I was coming close to finishing it. And so, Sean 5 was lost but not forgotten.

The End of Middle School

I spent the rest of my eighth grade year focusing on life's stresses as well as Dark Chao Adventures' sixth season. My writing skills were quietly improving. I wound up making one more comic series while I was in middle school, just a comic and not a game.

DON'T EAT PEPPERS!


I made a quick little comic about a friend eating a pepper and then, like.. breathing fire or something. Then I drew a second one about eating a pepper and something about a dinosaur. Then a third about something or other. And a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and then a seventh detailing the backstory of these mysterious peppers. It wasn't much, but I was proud of it.

In retrospect, the Dawn of the PaperMachine was key in experimentation. I really tried all kinds of unconventional storytelling media, even going so far as to inventing my own. Maybe one of these days, I'll make a new game on the PaperMachine.

Still to come, the Great Facebook Migration, and another generation of Dark Chao Adventures!

DJay32, a retrospective (4): The Golden Age of Comic

The Golden Age of Comic


Get ready, this is where it gets complicated. This is where I started getting interested in complexity.


The Start of an Era Arc


Fourth grade was a month from ending. I wasn't sure where my writing would take me next. Then one day, one fateful day, fat little Jordan decided to look up chao for the hell of it. I used to have chao, waaay back when I was eight or so, but for reasons of convenience, my brother Nathan had to get rid of them all. I didn't care; I was eight or so! But years later, when I was ten and fat, I looked up chao for the hell of it and discovered a site called Chao Civic. I joined its forums, and what the hell, I had an urge to make a new topic.

Dark Chao Adventures (First generation, 2005)


I decided to pay a memory to my lost chao, though I had very little idea what I'd actually do. I just made a thread and called it "Dark Chao Adventures." It wound up becoming not a prose story, but an episodic script series. I put all the chao I remembered into it and made the plot revolve around my Dark chao as they had childish battles with the Hero chao. Metal Sonic and his "poker buddies" entered the fray at some point, actually playing poker every Thursday night. At what I consider to be one of the series' low points, I even put Invader Zim in there. I admit, the first season of DCA was pretty much just Dark chao with a ten-year-old's perception of "Zim humour."

Every episode received praise and acclaim. I think it's safe to say this set in motion events that would lead to some of the most influential moments of my growing mind. Season one ended with episode eight, and I tried making a second season before the forums shut down for good and I lost everything-- except for the entire first season, which I had been crazy enough to save. I wound up forgetting about DCA for a while as sixth grade began.

The Discovery of Blog


My sixth-grade language arts teacher was fantastic; she was a British lady named Mrs. Courtade, and she loved me. Because I was also British. And she knew my brother! ..anyway, early in the year, she encouraged every kid in the class to set up a web log (also known as a "blog!"). My blog never had a name, nor even really a point. It was just for random things, like fat ol' me talking about my day or something. I still have records of the thing; it's just downright sickening, how young and naive I was!

Dark Chao Adventures (Second generation, 2006-2008)

Around Christmas of 2006, I remembered Dark Chao Adventures and brought it into my goofy little blog. I made a new second season, as well as a couple episodes into season three. And then I discovered a new chao forum: Chao Talk. I shared everything there, and I gathered a new fanbase of chao fans. For this little generation here, I got all the way up to what, season six? Season three gave us my first ever "epic" script: the season finale was the length of three normal full-sized episodes! I actually cut the script short and spread the story out among the entirety of season four.

Season five presented me with many opportunities to experiment. One, in particular, got my brain rushing still to this day: I tried experimenting with emotions, seeing if I could influence my readers' empathy. I wound up writing a pretty shitty little plot of, like.. "Mephiles convinces the Dark chao to disband." It really wasn't that good. And then season six was pure experimentation; I wrote the chao going through all kinds of video games, huge scripts with extremely intricate plots. This wound up shaping my writing tastes greatly. "Wacky adventure over several video game(-inspired) worlds while the bad guys aren't actually bad guys but they are always watching" has been a common theme in my writing.

But my fanbase faltered as soon as season six started. They all grew up; they didn't have time for chao anymore. I started writing for myself, experimenting far more wildly, trying all kinds of things. I gave the story a break after finishing the second Halloween special in 2008.

The Blogging Dark Ages

After a year of keeping my blog (putting us at 2007), the host site (blog-city.com) switched to a pay-to-blog method, so I had to stop my blog and get it archived.

Around this time, I looked into other, more free blogging options. I found Blogger, and I set up a little dorky blog titled DJay32's Paper Dimension. If you read its first post, you might be surprised about a couple things. I'll explain those as I go along. I didn't use Blogger much for the longest time, although when I did use it, I tried to contribute to a little story of mine.

Hoshi no Kaabii: Shadow Shutdown


I wanted to try prose of some sort, and I was still interested in fanfiction, so I gave Kirby a try and made a story using a lot of themes from Kirby 64. The story was, like.. "Dark Matter has returned, lookit how eldritch it is." I never finished it.

Instead, I was focusing my writing at school.

The Golden Age of Comics


Throughout sixth grade, I came up with more and more detailed and complex comic ideas.

Genocide


This was a Super Mario RPG fanfiction comic series. The first issue had a terrible plot: "Geno has been invited for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but he got lost on the way!" But I wound up experimenting with adventures, giving an interesting take on the Forest Maze, a strange windmill town, and a mansion where the only safety is the area touched by the beam of your flashlight. The comic wound up having a bit of an anime feel to it, even though I had no idea how to pronounce "genocide." My interest in the comic tapered off when I realized how hard it was to draw the mansion serial.

The Zig


Here's where I tried being indie. I wrote a comic where the first row is read from left to right, but then you go to the panel directly below that and read the next line right-to-left. And so on. I mean, it was really fun to write at the time, and I wound up getting up to volume thirty-something. Every ten volumes was a serial; the first ten were a Paper Mario-based story about Boos, the second ten were a Kirby adventure that actually didn't suck, and the third ten were all Tails Doll creepypasta from Sonic R. Then my interest tapered off.

U BIN URF BOWN'D!!!


I made exactly one issue of this. Don't even.. let's just not talk about it. ..well, alright. It was a skit-based comic about EarthBound. It was terrible. Which is why I only did one issue.

Sean


This was my pride and joy of sixth grade, right here. One day, in French class, my friend Sean Desmond jokingly suggested I make a comic about him. The comic I threw together featured him fighting ninjas on a rooftop, jumping off, and then getting eaten by a crocodile.

Sean loved this, so he officially turned the comic into a collaboration project. He made Sean 2: Sean's Payback, which consisted of him breaking out of the crocodile, finding me, and shooting me for making the comic. I continued with the epic three-pager Sean 3: Anghell's Revenge, which had my brother Nathan (dubbed "Anghell" in reference to his usual screenname) try to kill Sean for killing me. In the end, I walked back in and asked what was going on, and then the two of them killed me.

Sean gave the world Sean 4: Sean and Jordan after this, which was of himself and myself goofing off and shooting each other and becoming superheroes. Then I made the comic to end all comics with Sean 5. Probably had a subtitle, don't remember. This was a six-pager. o: It had our characters trying to save the world from a giant meteor controlled by Anghell. I died a lot! :DDDD

The Sean comic series came to an end here when Sean didn't get around to making a sixth installment, but I still had more plans in store for the series.

(There was also the Naes comics, where I basically redid the first three comics, making them all look really really good.)

In retrospective, The Golden Age of Comic was one of the most important eras of my writing ever. So much happened here that we essentially had two parallel eras at the same time: We had the discovery of blog, which got my young mind interested in things to come, and we had the golden age of comics, where I basked in the fun of expanding on my skills.

Still to come, I do a super-special and relatively unique thing with the Sean series, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting! We'll find out, though, won't we?

Friday, December 16, 2011

DJay32, a retrospective (3): The Discovery of Comic

The Discovery of Comic


After second grade ended and Doctor Killybopper's Big Mistake ended prematurely, I didn't feel like writing prose for a long time. Instead, I wanted to see what other kinds of media could keep me satisfied. I'd say around third grade, I was spending Christmas with my nana in England, up in Yorkshire. I had a piece of paper and a pen, and Tomb Raider was on TV. For whatever reason, this inspired me to make a film trailer-- in comic format.

Tomb Invader


I invented a protagonist of my very own for this! (Get ready, oh god.) I took Kirby (the pink puffball of Nintendo fame), gave him a nose, and then scratched the nose out. Called him "Sinka Puffy." I gave him a bad guy who was a Jack-o-Lantern with a bear's body, seven tentacles for feet, and angel wings. Called him "King Dododo." And then I drew Meta Knight, made him green, and scratched up his armor a lot, and called him "Mecha Knight." He was actually more badass than Meta Knight. I made a good... several of these in the end, climaxing with Tomb Invader 4 which was a full-fledged, like.. 100-panel comic. Made references to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but it also actually had its own pretty funny jokes.

My art style evolved for a while at this point, with me giving comics more and more detail. I made Tomb Invader comics for.. I'd say about a couple years.

Super Smash Brothers X


Yeah, who hasn't come up with that title already? Well, this was a, like... thirteen-page comic, each page representing a different fight in this fictional game's story mode. I don't remember much about it, but I know I was remotely proud of this one. I believe, at some point, I invented a "custom character" who was a stickman called "Kustom Kid," or "KK." As if Smash Bros. would ever let you create a character.

The Gamer's Realm


By fourth grade, I was ready to tackle an ongoing comic series. The plot was.. kinda.. simple-ish. Sinka Puffy and Kustom Kid had an apartment together and, like.. fought crime and stuff. I admit, it was roughly inspired by John & Richie's Perfect Kirby flash series, but it wound up having a relatively original plot at times. Hell, I even found a kid named Casey who was willing to collaborate with me. I wrote the plot and drew shit, and he actually wrote things! ..that is, he literally wrote the words down. That I'd come up with.

TGR wound up being the debut of my depiction of Metal Sonic: an abnormally rough and tough badass killing machine who is usually unstoppable. This would come up later.

In retrospective, The Discovery of Comic wasn't particularly outstanding, especially not when compared to other eras. But it was, by far, important in a lot of things. It allowed me to develop my attention span to get me ready for writing the true epics to come, and it got me to come up with relatively original characters. Plus, it let me realize how much Metal Sonic was really my favourite Sonic character ever.

Still to come, some of those epics mentioned earlier. But first, we have to travel through a particularly nostalgic time in my life. The next era will consist of two "halves," each being about as significant as the eras you've seen so far. Get ready for it.

DJay32, a retrospective (2): The Killybopper Era

The Killybopper Era

I've always liked coming up with ideas and stories, for as long as I can remember (as early as four, I was pretending my life was a TV channel for the sake of the storytelling format), but it wasn't until second grade in the American school system that I started to discover the sheer fun I had writing. See, in second grade, we had this wonderful writing teacher who found this way for us to "publish" stories we wrote into  little makeshift laminated "books." It was nothing too advanced, but for a second-grade writer, it was exactly the motivation I needed.

The Martian Busters

The first story I got to writing in The Killybopper Era was ambitious, in itself. It was a full-fledged space adventure starring three human astronauts (an average man, an average woman, and some dude named "Blub" -- the comic relief). The plot was simple enough: Some evil Martians were planning on.. doing something evil with the solar system. The three astronauts had to go to every single planet (including Pluto!) and.. do something or other. Featuring terrible dialogue, horrible artwork, and not that bad of a plot!

Sonic the Hedgehog

That's right, the second official story DJay32 ever wrote in his life was a work of Sonic fanfiction. Trust me, this thing sucked. First of all, it was shorter than The Martian Busters. Second of all, the plot was simply laughable (something about, like.. "Eggman's being evil! And look, it's Shadow, he looks like Sonic somehow, that's a running gag, right?"). Third of all, it.. it just sucked, okay? I'm quite embarrassed by it. But then again, it's also really interesting that this was what I chose to write second for reasons I will discuss later.

Doctor Killybopper's Big Mistake

This is the era namer, man. Get ready for this; this one is one I am proud of. So, towards the end of the year, I really wanted to write one last story, but I didn't know what to name it. So my teacher recommended I look at this stupid list of story names and take one. So I did! Most of them were terrible kid things like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Citizen Kane," but I picked a real whopper with "Doctor Killybopper's Big Mistake." For some reason, the name just.. interested me.

The plot, itself, wound up being technically my first "epic." So there's this scientist, right? He's called Doctor Killybopper. And he's invented this machine that-- this was so dorky-- puts you inside video games. And these kids-- he's a teacher or something-- visit him one day and he shows them the machine, and he makes his "Big Mistake" in that they fall in or something. And they have to spend the story going through all these video games. I remember using Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but that's all I remember. I don't believe I ever actually finished it. It's a shame; the other kids in the class were actually getting really interested in this story of mine.

In retrospective, I'm glad I had The Killybopper Era. It really set me on the path for some of my later stories. I've written plenty of space-related stories since The Martian Busters, I've become half-famous for Sonic fanfiction, and Killybopper could very well be a super-early predecessor to RAPTURE.

We've still got many more eras to go, though. Be ready for this stuff. It's gonna get interesting, I'm sure.

DJay32, a retrospective (1)

An era of my writing has ended.

We've had three primary Fearblogs for this era: Jordan Eats Normally Now, Moonlit Whispers, and Memories of a Time Beyond. OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING doesn't count; it's in a different canon entirely.

All three Fearblogs have ended. Jordan Eats was the last, ending a matter of days ago. This was a huge time for my writing; Jordan Eats was my experimentation with not just prose, not just blogging, but videos as well. Jordan Eats allowed me to filter out what worked and what didn't. Moonlit Whispers let me try to be simply flat-out scary, Rule Of Scary, and not focus on writing a complex story. Memories of a Time Beyond was entirely just me writing out of boredom. I made a few mistakes with that one, but I'm pretty happy with how the story came out.

Now that all three have finished, I'd like to stop to review how far I've come.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Two Jordan Eats Normally Now Bonuses

Jordan Eats Normally Now alternate ending.


Instead of choosing to stay in Metropolis, this ending shows Jordan choosing his old life. You can see for yourself how that turns out. Originally planned to have Jordan become a Nightlander, but I had difficulty pulling that off. The annoying thing is, this actually wound up a better-done ending than the Metropolis one. >__> But the Metropolis ending is what the story was supposed to end with.

"Time" blooper.


Making the videos of Jordan Eats wasn't always easy, especially not when Nathan was involved. I've lost the footage from most of the previous clips, but here's a blooper I found from recording Nathan's dramatic climax. Not exactly that funny, but it's something.

The End of Jordan Eats Normally Now

Jordan Eats is over. For credits, highlight the bottom of the post.

There was also an epilogue ending The Topography of Thought and giving answers in the most vague of ways possible.

Bonuses in the next post.

Sad update.

My actors across the pond can't do the video.

I'm rewriting the scene so I can do it myself somehow. Expect Jordan Eats to end sometime in the next 24 hours.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Tiny update.

The finale to Jordan Eats Normally Now should be coming in the next couple days. My actors across the pond are going to shoot their scene soon.

Monday, December 5, 2011

???

BONES
BRYAN BREECREST
PHIL THE GUNSLINGER
THE BIRCHMAN
ROBOT PIRATE
BEAVIS SUPERBEAR
(HIDDEN)

Choose your fighter.
OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING ACT III

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

On Rapture, random information

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING has four acts, but the first act does not start on May 20th as previously stated.

The entries for May 20th and 21st make up the overture Everything in its Right Place. This is followed by a one-day absence of log, and then Act I The Glass Prison begins, subtitled "(The Coming of) The Four Rakes."

Act I is the act with the most logs, with a total of forty-three. The act climaxes as the protagonists cross the Atlantic Ocean, and then we enter Act II New Millenium, subtitled "(The Seven Ciphers of) The Blind Man's Book." This act will have thirty-four logs. The climax and whatnot are unknown as of now, but then there shall be Act III Apocalypse Please! This will be subtitled "(The Duels of) The Knights of Xanadu," and thirty-eight logs are planned for it.

Around the climax of Act III, the reader will find out exactly what Rapture is. And then we will hit Act IV Where the Wild Things Are, subject to change. Subtitled "(The Hunting of) The Beast and The Harlot," also subject to change. This will be the final act with a planned thirty-seven logs. The story will end with a big bang, and everyone will fall in love with the writer known as DJay32.

That is my plan, and I'd like to stick to it. If you're wondering what the random titles are next to the act numbers, that's each act's literary theme. This will be elaborated on further in a later post.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

On Jordan Eats, the definite finale

Spoilers abound for those who haven't read Jordan Eats.

Towards the start of Jordan Eats Normally Now, the character of Nathan entered. He was portrayed as a comedic, lighthearted human, and the brother of narrator Jordan. He was introduced to serve the purpose of being a third party, as it was requested that Jordan explore areas "with someone else." So he brings his brother!


As time went on, Nathan became a sort of "sacrificial lamb" character, being stabbed in the eye and then later trapped in a Door. Being trapped in The Empty City represented a sort of metaphorical "death" for Nathan. Jordan slowly crumbled as EAT and The Empty City played on his fears and recent loss. Jordan blamed himself for Nathan's "death" entirely. Eventually, Jordan chose to step into a Door himself, whereupon he got lost in the City.


He has been spending all this time searching for Nathan, searching for Sam, searching for anyone, all while slowly turning into a Nightlander. He found the Nightlander form of Sam, and after an eldritch imprisonment, even found Nathan. Whether Nathan was a Nightlander or not remains unseen. Nathan gave Jordan the advice to take the City's bribe and leave for England.


The opportunity has presented our narrator with a choice: Take the Door out of the City and resume his place in the chess game, or pursue Nathan and stay forever in eldritch Hell. Which will it be?

I have been thinking the plot through ever since I came back to the States, and I think ending it soon is the right choice. The question is, will Jordan go after Nathan or not? That's seriously something I need to decide. I have both endings planned out, and chances are I'll film both and release the uncanon one here. But I need to figure out which one will be canon.

I need to put Jordan Eats to rest.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

On Jordan Eats, the possibility of a finale

Jordan Eats Normally Now is a roughly allegorical story telling of my ongoing struggles to survive in the bastard's journey that is my life. A lot of the earlier entries, the England entries, were telling of trying to keep myself sane while slowly being driven away from reality and into the world of my obsessions (EAT, the eldritch abomination of the England entries, was created around my fear of drowning in my obsessive world), especially after my brother Nathan and his girlfriend Kit (who played the part of Sam) left for America.

I wound up getting an opportunity to go back to the States, myself, so I took the allegory on a wild chase. I sent Jordan through a Door to The Empty City. Making The Empty City was hard to decide, but really easy to execute. I just put the camera on each time and let the mysteries unfold by themselves. The Empty City is not meant to make sense, although vague hints of symbolism are intended. In the end, the only thing it truly represents is the crazy events of my life in America.

If stress faced me, I would go straight to Jordan Eats and blog as if the City was messing with my mind. If other people were caught on camera, I would act as if I don't see them, to leave the viewer pondering as to the specifics of the City. I utilized what I could in camera effects and lighting to make the videos appear as crazy and symbolic as I could as the story progressed. I really took the pretentious route, because I wanted to make it clear how eldritch an abomination can be.

In the end, my life is coming to a full-fledged Octavarium-style circle, and the Door in front of me is making the noises of my home in England. So thus, Jordan Eats must reflect this.

I never really knew when I wanted the blog to end, but with this dramatic progression of events, I feel the finish line racing towards us. I'm eating my way back home.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Rapture Credits for now

OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is a humongous story with a shitton of things I really need to give credit to. When the time finally comes that the story is over, I'm going to have to go through every single entry and take a note of every single thing I'd have to give credit for.

And that's gonna take ages.

But in the meantime, here's a ridiculously condensed list of the things going into the story!

Antagonists based off creatures from The Fear Mythos
Protagonists based off my friends, including but not limited to:
Daniel Finnegan, Eric Taylor, Catie DeBiaso, Jane Bennis, Thomas Minor, Michael Brown, Paul Botsford, Tropers/BobbyG
Any characters portraying real people do not represent the person's actual views, opinions, choices, personalities, or anything.
Any locations portraying real places do not represent the location's actual state of being, landscape, map, or anything.
The thousands of songs and albums and bands portrayed in this story are completely copyrighted by their own labels and producers and writers. I do not claim ownership on a single thing here.
Promotional art by Jane "Cadet" Bennis, Catie "Fentzy" DeBiaso, and Jill Hryciw.
Written by Jordan "DJay32" Dooling
I give full permission for the story OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING to be used in any way, shape, or form the Fearbloggers see fit
TheFearMythos11

Monday, November 7, 2011

What is "OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING?"

Off to the side of this blog, you may spot a gadget referring to itself as my "online resume." On it are a series of links to various works of mine. It's not complete, despite what it may tell you. I don't remember all of my works, and there are bound to be a few I don't even want to share. But in the meantime, I had may as well describe what each link actually links to.


OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING


Quite a while ago, there were these "rumours" going around that the world was gonna end on May 21st, 2011. It was some Christian in Florida or something named Harold Camping; he was saying that "Rapture" was coming at 6 PM on that day. I don't know if anyone believed him, but when the day finally came around... suffice to say, everything was fine.


On May 21st, 2011, I came up with an idea while talking with a friend of mine on AIM, a friend I call "Fentzy." She posted, as an AIM status, "GOD THE RAPTURE BURNS." I paraphrase. We wound up having a discussion about the Rapture phenomenon that was (sarcasm)totally(end sarcasm) going on around us. It was then that I came up with an idea I'm surprised not more people did: Write a journal telling of my struggles to stay alive as all the sinners of the world are cast into Hell.


So I went on Facebook, and I opened up a new note. I titled it "OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING (Cyborn B: The Decade of Rapture) Or 'How I Survived the Apocalypse.'" I began writing a journal taking place between 11:59 PM on May 20th and 6:00 PM on May 21st. It involved myself as I saw the sky turn red, cats grow into demonic spider-like beings, I made some social commentary, I fought The Rake, and I discovered a portal to another dimension. ...actually, the note featured a lot of genuinely appealing things. Like Cockroach Jesus, who is exactly as he sounds: a man-sized cockroach with the head of Jesus Christ.


The note became a surprise hit, attracting the attention of people who would normally never read my stuff, and then I realized that "Rapture" was allegedly coming at 6 PM Eastern time, which was 11 PM my time. So I decided to make a sequel note, extending fictional Jordan's journey to just after the story reached 11 PM. I really took the time to experiment with my writing, adding situations more imaginative than I thought I could do, pulling off tropes I'd only read about before, and throwing in an ending that was more comedic than religious. I was genuinely proud of my work, and the reception was more than warm.


I was going to end it there. That's when another good friend of mine, a mister Danny Finnegan, informed me that Harold Camping was restating himself. Rapture was said to only be beginning; it wouldn't fully arrive until some time in October.


I made the decision that would change my artistic future forever. I decided to extend OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING. I wasn't entirely sure where the story would go, but I was sure I wanted to keep going with it. My first thought was to expand upon the fact that The Rake was present in the first log. Why not say it's a Fearblog? So I decided to work the Fears in the story.


Note: There's a lot of story-related production information that I will not disclose here at the moment, as the plot is still ongoing and to release the information here would be giving spoilers I don't want to disclose.


Before long, I had one of the most intense and promising plots I'd ever imagined. I had a legitimate cosmic horror story on my hands. I had a topical plot, above all else. And I had a definite fanbase. I made a few more Facebook notes before realizing that, in order to make more fans, I'd have to circulate the story on other websites. So I decided to give the story its own blog. But Blogger didn't feel right, so I tried giving Tumblr a shot.


I transferred the Facebook notes into an organized Tumblr format, and then I set out to write future logs on the blog. But I still needed one thing in order for it to feel right.


I put on my slendercoat, my trilby, my purple scarf, and my 3D sunglasses, and then I grabbed my Guitar Hero II-brand Gibson X-Plorer guitar controller. I went downstairs and asked my mother if she could take a photograph of me posing with "Tiger Stripes," my guitar (that I had also sprayed with a little ketchup, to give off the illusion of a bloody weapon). I put the photograph on the Tumblr; now my story had visualisation to add to it.


Every entry is written in an almost Twitter-like stream-of-consciousness style, and the reader is asked to keep a willful suspension of disbelief that Jordan can somehow write in his journal in some of the most bizarre of times. There has been an entry for every day since May 20th, 2011 (except for May 22nd), and I intend on there being one for every day until October 21st, 2011.


Shortly before October 21st, Harold Camping suddenly changed his mind and said no one can define when the world's gonna end. So Camping's story ends with a whimper, and OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING's story lives on.


The overall plot is divided into four acts. The table of contents can be found here.


Act I: The Coming of the Four Rakes
Our narrator meets up with a strange girl named Donnie, and the two set out to search England for a safe haven from this "Rapture." On the way, they discover that there are these portals called "rabbit holes," eldritch creatures of all sorts of sizes and threat levels, survivors who may or may not be as insane as the beasts scattering the planet, and that Rapture is not here yet. But it's coming. Meet Mistress, May 20th-July 4th.


Act II: The Seven Ciphers of the Blind Man's Book
Jordan and Donnie have arrived in America and met up with fellow youths Danny and Fentzy. The group must search the States for the closest thing to a world-saving lead they have: seven mysterious phenomena simply referred to as "Ciphers," all scattered deep within the other universe. Can they decipher the ciphers before they are hunted down by the Fears and before Rapture arrives? Meet Fentzy, July 5th-August 7th.


Act III: The Duels of the Knights of Xanadu
With the decoding of the Ciphers came seven legendary figures known as "the Knights of Xanadu." The prophecy goes that Jordan has to duel them all, but with the protagonist party at its full number of six, the kids are finding it hard to save the world without stepping on each other's toes and hearts! Things get obfuscated further when several new Fears appear completely out of nowhere, and Jordan has to settle conflicts among his friends and the eldritch abominations populating the apocalypse! Meet the Neonate, August 8th-September 15th.


Act IV: The Hunt of the Beast and the Harlot, The Seven Beacons, and The Terminal Coming of Rapture
The protagonists have discovered the meaning of "Rapture," and now their hopes are running slim. As twisted figures hunt to bring the end of the world, The Beast returns to his people and hunts for his wife, and the rabbit holes cover entire countries, the question now is whether Jordan can do what the prophecies ask of him. Meet The Beast, September 16th-October 21st.


The whole website has a slew of bonus features, including critical acclaim, promotional artwork, and even fanart.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Exasperated

I sleep in the living room in the house I grew up in. I live here with several other people, only one of which is actually related to me (Nathan, my brother).

"What's it like living there?" After an 18-hour day of school (not a typo), I was ready to sleep tonight at midnight. It wasn't until 4 AM that the tenants decided to stop watching loud television and go to bed.

I don't even know if I wanna sleep anymore. Those four hours were plenty enough time for my emotions to go bad. This is what I get for being a teenager with a shitty life story.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

DJay32 Plays Minecraft

I haven't had a real chance to give Minecraft a shot until just now. I was gonna record myself playing it, but I've decided against that. Partly because I can't find a copy of Fraps that works on a Macbook. So instead, I'm just gonna keep a journal.

We're starting on Easy mode, as I was advised to not begin on Peaceful. It's apparently not good for entertainment.

DJay32 Plays Minecraft, a journal
First of all, I have no idea what version this is, but I have the feeling it's not up to date.

I spawned near a coast, got used to the controls and whatnot, and began looking around. I found the animals adorable, then I decided to start exploring.

I travelled quite a way, exploring foggy mountains and clearer valleys. I almost went into a mine before realizing I have no portable light, so I headed back out.

And then night fell.

I ran into a dark corner, and mashed buttons until I realized that Macbooks have no right-click. So I kept trying until I figured out how to place blocks, then I made a little block fort. I waited a minute for night to pass, got impatient, then went back out. Immediately, I heard a growl and turned and ran and closed the fort again.

Then a zombie hit me through my blocks and killed me.

I respawned.

I awoke near a coast again. This time, I went straight for the ground and dug. I got several blocks below ground, then started moving forward. Eventually, it turned day and I resurfaced, no longer just a mole man. I explored, immediately heard a hiss, and ran as a giant spider hopped around.

I ran around a little pond, then I saw something man-sized. Something green. Something that looked suspiciously like a cactus. I inched my way up to it in fear, then looked at all four sides of it. It was a cactus.

So I went back to exploring. Crossed a lake, reached an island, attempted making a water irrigation system. Then I just started digging again.

...this game's fun, but it's not entertaining to watch.

Monday, October 24, 2011

I prefer the term "Morally Hilarious"

For the longest time (that is, a couple weeks), I've had a busted Macbook and laptop. The only way I had of going on the internet was my iPod Touch, and I used that primarily for flirting with hot girls keeping in contact with hot and dominant girls my friends. However! Today, (one of my) best friend's mother was able to fix the Macbook's charger, thus rendering it usable again. I've already released a new post and video on Jordan Eats Normally Now, and I've gotten back to work on the oddly-difficult task of inching my way through OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING (which will receive a post dedicated to it on here soon!).

Moral of this story? Mooch off your friends, and kiss ass for a living. Don't forget to flirt with dominant girls. It helps to kiss their asses too. It's not exactly a non-fun activity, anyway. >W> 


This is DJay32, signing out!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

What is "Memories of a Time Beyond?"

Off to the side of this blog, you may spot a gadget referring to itself as my "online resume." On it are a series of links to various works of mine. It's not complete, despite what it may tell you. I don't remember all of my works, and there are bound to be a few I don't even want to share. But in the meantime, I had may as well describe what each link actually links to.


Memories of a Time Beyond


At one point towards the end of my time in England, around midsummer 2011, I got bored of being trapped with all the same blogs, so I decided to make a quick short story to tide myself over. I came up with the idea of making a blog about the Fear known as The Choir, much as how Jordan Eats Normally Now was about the Fear called EAT.


I made a few posts every now and then, but I never really 'clicked' with the story until tonight, as a matter of fact. In fact, tonight I wrote.. the latter half of the whole blog, I'd say. And now that it's over, I decided to post about it here.


The story is of a girl named Polly who tries to lose herself in nostalgia, but quickly grows to trust her blog with a much more personal story. I don't want to spoil much so soon after finishing the thing, but to put it vaguely, it's psychological horror with not really all that much supernatural stuff. I'd go as far as to say there is no supernatural stuff in it at all.


You can find it here.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Regarding my Fear writings

When I write something that takes another person's creation, I tend to take my liberties with it if I'm allowed permission. In Jordan Eats Normally Now, readers are wondering why my Empty City isn't "behaving" like The Empty City "should." This is also because of the liberties I take. I like to make sure everyone's guessing, and if not even the creators are sure how their creations work, then you have some proper horror.

Case in point: Mister Troy Wagner took some liberties with the slender man when making Marble Hornets Part 1, and now his artistic vision of the creature has wound up becoming the norm for most slenderblogs.

Monday, September 26, 2011

A school update

I'm currently in the computer lab in second period at my high school. I'm surprised they haven't blocked Blogger.

I've finished my history project way early, and so now I'm without work. I want to just write.

Writing helps me escape from the world. Jordan Eats focuses a lot on psychological horror, and with good reason-- I really do go through that kind of horror almost every day. Writing helps me leave it, even if only for a little bit. Writing takes me away from all the stresses, the neverending worries, the pools of sheer eldritch thoughts that I can't possibly organize (and yet have already arranged themselves in patterns I can't recognize), and all the memories of abuse.

Horror is my genre, and there is very good reason for it.

What is "Jordan Eats Normally Now?"

Off to the side of this blog, you may spot a gadget referring to itself as my "online resume." On it are a series of links to various works of mine. It's not complete, despite what it may tell you. I don't remember all of my works, and there are bound to be a few I don't even want to share. But in the meantime, I had may as well describe what each link actually links to.

Jordan Eats Normally Now


Way early in the year (around February-ish, I'd say), I was asked by a fellow troper whether I could provide an eldritch abomination for a little project of his. He specifically asked for a "Water Elemental" for something he referred to as simply "A New Mythos." The mythos was to be a mythos of creepypasta and other assorted internet horror featuring an assortment of baddies, and my pal wanted a water-based one.

So I go to the New Mythos thread and throw out five brainstorms for "water elemental" abominations. One of them is a tentacled pondmonster, one is a Victorian-era lady of steam, one is a strange mist in the middle of the desert, one is something that possesses grandfathers, and one is a ten-staged "blog comment virus." I decide to blend two together-- the first and the last.

I have now created an eldritch abomination. But what to call it? For now, it's just called "the Water Elemental." I think for a while, and I discover an oddity in horror: a lot of horror is inspired by heavy metal or folk or just plain rock lyrics, with a lot of the eldritch inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I set my heart out on being different. I set my heart out on being inspired by progressive rock, and the works of Stephen King and Troy Wagner.

I begin to come up with the inner workings of my beast, crafting the details of the "ten-stage blog virus," merging it with the tentacled pond-monster. I look into what could possibly be more original than tentacles in a pond, and I find out through a fellow troper that many fungi have "string"-like extensions that are similar in appearance to tentacles. I decide to make my Water Elemental a sort of eldritch fungus. ..that expels ink.

You see, the Water Elemental works by "eating" the water in a body of liquid and replacing it all with its "ink." Its ink looks exactly like water and tastes exactly like it, but if it happens to "eat" all the water in your body (70% water!)? Welcome to the hive mind, bitch. Welcome to her hive mind.

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.


I still need a name, though. So I open up my music library and take a look at some of the most progressive stuff I have. I spot two names: Genesis' "The Battle of Epping Forest" and Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Tarkus." I start throwing brainstorms out there. "The Pond Epper?" Not quite. "The Epping Tarkus?" Close, but something's missing. ...then I remember the seventh movement of "Tarkus:" Aquatarkus.

"The Epping AquaTarkus." Say hello to EAT.

My colleagues love it. "EAT." It sounds so evil.
But it's not evil. It's patient, it's growing, and it's not of this world, but it's not evil.
It's perfect. But also learning. Learning about us.

Now I just need a story.

What's wrong with most blog horror stories? They're obviously fake; the protagonist has a couple of normal entries before "OMG SLENDER MAN." The prose is too.. formal; if a character meets and has a lengthy discussion with someone or something, when they get home that night, they will recount every single detail of the conversation word-for-word. They're hard to follow if using multiple media; EverymanHYBRID is the perfect offender of this, with several blogs and YouTube channels and Twitters that require multiple timelines just to follow accurately.

To remedy the first problem, I decide to use a blog I'd been keeping since age twelve. Originally titled DJay32's Paper Dimension, renamed Jordan, Large But Not in Charge, and then finally (coincidentally) renamed Jordan Eats Normally Now, this blog has as realistic of a backlog as it gets; it really is real.

To remedy the second problem, I make sure my protagonist omits a lot of information and is as unreliable and untalkative about his life as it gets. If he has a discussion with someone in the day, he'll go home to blog and either give a rough recollection of events or not mention it at all.

To remedy the third problem, I make sure all external media is captured in screenshot/link and posted on the main blog. If a new reader were to read only the blog, they would therefore get the whole story, despite many videos being uploaded to YouTube and other blogs being involved.

Now, what about the story?

I decide to take my "blog virus" concept and have that be the catalyst. The rest will be synopsed right now.

Overture:
Jordan Dooling used to frequent a blog titled Progression Enhanced that analyzed and broke down prog albums. Then he stopped, only to come back several months later to find the blog removed. Through a fellow frequenter, he's provided with saved screenshots of every entry, revealing the first pieces to a puzzle Jordan begins to wish he'd never attempted solving.

Movement I- Investigative Implications:
Jordan receives an anonymous email citing a nearby address. This is an abandoned house-- abandoned, that is, other than the blogger behind Progression Enhanced. As he investigates, he discovers a series of experimental videos, and a second blog that seems to have suffered the same fate as Progression, the biggest link being the final comment by "The Camper."

Movement II- The Camper House:
Jordan discovers a third blog that has fallen victim to "The Camper:" The Topography of Thought. This one only raises more questions. Continuing his investigation of the mysterious house, Jordan tries bringing his brother along, only for things to get quite a bit more serious than either could have predicted.

Movement III- Topographic Silence:
After the surprising new events, Jordan is left alone in stunned confusion. Old blogs are reawakened, developments increase exponentially in terms of crypticness, and Jordan begins the slow descent into losing his sanity-- as well as his blog!

Movement IV- Doors Open Wide:
Jordan's sanity is hanging by threads at this point, and yet unfortunately, it's got a lot further to go. The only things certain in this movement are that insanity is painful, and the unknown doesn't care about your past.

Movement V- Regressional Performance:
Jordan's on the run from The Camper, and he thinks he can still save his sanity while he's at it. But the better question is, can he save his brother? Can he save himself?


(Epilogue)


That's the whole story, right there. I worked hard on it for a good eleven months, and with the end of it came the end of an era.